Free Rue Allyn by One Moment's Pleasure

waited. She didn’t jump him. He felt for her pulse. It was steady and strong. He bent close to her face and lifted an eyelid. The pupil was dilated. Drugs, concussion, or both, it didn’t much matter. Despite his inspection she remained still as stone.
    Now what? What if she were seriously hurt? It could be hours before anyone came to check on her. He couldn’t just leave her. He was almost convinced she wasn’t a prostitute, at least not a willing one. If it cost him his business and his hard won reputation, as long as he had the means, he wouldn’t allow Duval to ruin another innocent.
    The noisy hallway had gone silent, all the clients and whores busy with the same activities they imagined he enjoyed. So any ruckus he raised would be ignored. Damn. He’d have to take her with him. Then what? He couldn’t, wouldn’t keep her. He’d have to figure that out later. Right now he had to get out of here. Cerise wouldn’t be happy that he’d left with her newest acquisition, no matter what fee he’d paid.
    He looked from the woman on the floor to his makeshift rope and the window through which he’d planned to escape. Carrying her while trying to climb down those tied sheets was not an option. That left only one escape route.
    He wrapped the filmy dress around her body and hauled her over his shoulder, holding her steady with one hand. With the other hand he cracked the door open. Cautiously he checked, finding the dimly lit hallway empty. For the first time that night Dutch felt lucky. Unseen, he slipped out of the doorway and headed for the back stairs.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Edith woke with a splitting headache. Blinding sunlight streamed in through the open window. She shut her eyes and gently probed her throbbing pate with one hand. Her fingers encountered a bandage. Even that small touch hurt too much, and with a moan she stopped.
    Blocking the light with a raised hand, she cracked her eyelids and tried to peer through her lashes at the room. A thin blanket lay folded on a spindly chair near the far wall. Last night’s horrid dress was slung over the chair’s ladder back. She would have liked to cover herself, but she doubted she could sit up let alone walk across the room and back.
    This certainly wasn’t Madame Cerise Duval’s bordello. Dingy unpainted clapboard made up the walls. Cracks showed through here and there in the crude woodwork. Who put this place together, she wondered? As a six-year-old, she’d built better structures out of sticks and stones.
    Her arm grew tired, and her head continued to throb. She drew her hand back to cover her eyes, trying to imagine where she was and how she got there. The only possibility that occurred was that Mr. Trahern had abducted her. For what nefarious purpose she could only imagine. He’d seemed so nice at the railway depot. She’d even felt guilty about deceiving him, but he was a wolf cloaked as a gentleman. At her first opportunity, Mr. Debaucher of Women Trahern would learn the consequences of abducting a Boston Alden. If he was typical of the populace, then San Francisco certainly was different the Boston. That thought reminded her of a greater difficulty. To find Kiera, Edith had to get back to the bordello. Giving the duplicitous Mr. Trahern his comeuppance would have to wait. The first step to leaving was to find out where she was.
    Banging on the door interrupted her musings.
    “Missee, you dressed?” The voice came from the opposite side of the door.
    Edith chanced a look down at herself. In the stark light of day her nudity caused her to shudder. The shudder hurt her head, and she moaned once more. What had she been thinking last night? How had she imagined she could persuade a man as dastardly as Mr. Trahern to conduct a pretended liaison? Success might have been possible, if he’d been the gentleman he pretended to be at the depot.
    The door latch rattled. “Missee, you sick? I come in. Help you.”
    “No,” Edith breathed. “Wait,